ISSUE 1, AUG 2010

Documenting the growing movement to restore fit and proper ownership to Liverpool FC

SAVE LFC

August 2010—SAVE LFC MAGAZINE 3

CONTENTS

“When I was in the leverage buy-out business we bought Weetabix and we leveraged it up to make our return. You could say that anyone who was eating Weetabix was paying for our purchase of Weetabix. It was just business. It is the same for Liverpool”

Tom Hicks, 22 May 2007

NOW NOW...

WAIT FOR IT...

THE CONTENTS WILL BE ALONG SOON...

WHEN THE WHOLE MAG...

IS FINISHED...

BUT FOR NOW...

THIS’LL GIVE YOU A TASTER...

OF WHAT’S COMIN...

GET INVOLVED!

GET ANGRY!

TELL YOUR FRIENDS!

BUT MOST OF ALL, ENJOY IT AND HAVE A LAUGH!

IN THIS ISSUE

For example, since mid-May, groups of fans have: recorded and released a protest single; arranged, sourced, and manufactured an alternative kit; placed banners at most World Cup games to attract media attention for their cause; developed a global network of fans’ groups to leverage the fans’ professional expertise across the whole spectrum of skills and job; developed contacts with sports journalists worldwide; found ways to carry their cause to the owners’ doorsteps; and amassed a total of more than 50,000 ‘followers’ on the social networking site “Facebook”.

The watchword of this movement from its outset has been that things must be done legally at every stage – that the facts about the owners and their stewardship of the club are enough in themselves to damn them in the eyes of the world and their fellow supporters. But at the same time, it’s been agreed that, as it’s a ‘just cause’, the boys and girls involved should enjoy the fight, and try and indulge in a little mischief along the way. That formula’s proven a winning package thus far, and it’s certainly going to be interesting to watch the movement unfold.

We explore how this movement got started, the talents behind the scenes, and the reasons behind it – the facts about what’s going on at the club.

In this the inaugural issue of SAVE LFC MAGAZINE, we document the rise of a new fans’ movement centred around Liverpool Football Club.

The aims of this movement are simple: to restore and maintain fit and proper ownership for the football club they love. The Liverpool fans, it seems, have had enough of their owners. And they’re no longer prepared to sit idly by – they’re salty for the fight.

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THE NUMBERS – READ ‘EM AND WEEPDEBT – BEFORE AND AFTER THE TAKEOVER

NET TRANSFER SPENDING SINCE THE TAKEOVER

WHAT THEY’VE PUT IN & WHAT THEY WANT BACK

August 2010—SAVE LFC MAGAZINE 5

FROM THE SPECIAL EDITION OF WELL REDFor a free special edition of the magazine on the state of the club, go to: http://www.wellredmag.co.uk/debt.pdf

Why do so many Liverpool fans oppose Hicks and Gillett?

When they bought the club in 2007, they quickly offered reassurances. George Gillett promised to make the club bigger than Chelsea and Manchester United and stated: “We have purchased the club with no debt on the club so, in that regard, it is different to the Glazers.”

Meanwhile Hicks gave the game away about why he decided to join his friend in buying the club. “[Gillett] gave me a bunch of financial numbers which sounded attractive... I can totally understand what Glazer saw in Manchester United.”

In January 2008 The Guardian reported the club now bore the debt they’d taken out to buy the club. Hicks had already stated his intentions: “When I was in the leverage buy-out business we bought Weetabix and we leveraged it up to make our return. You could say anyone eating Weetabix was paying for our purchase. It was just business. It is the same for Liverpool.”

The last published accounts tell us the debt now stands at £351m. (If you add up all the group’s liabilities it comes to approx £472m; however, if you take some assets into account – like few things they could easily sell for cash – the net debt comes to £351m.)

That means the club is paying £40m a year - that’s £110,000 a day – to the

banks in interest instead of on players or on the construction of a new stadium.

Not only that – their behaviour has destabilized a club once proud of its dignity and discretion. In their first full season as owners, their disagreements surfaced in a torrid display of poor management, public criticisms of their staff, and competitive ego-jostling. No surprise that the team’s performance suffered with a poor mid-season run. It’s continued that way ever since.

But the club’s up for sale – they won’t be here for long, will they?

They might. Hicks says a fair price for the club is somewhere between £600m to £800m. Some analysts believe £350m might be justified, based on LFC’s recent earnings. Others believe it’s much less. In any case, we’re going to earn much less without Champions League football.

Why are our finances in such a terrible state when we’ve spent so little on players? Forget the figures you see in the tabloids – check the accounts and www.lfchistory.net. Our net spend since the takeover is £16.6m a year. How much have we earned in TV and UEFA money since then? A lot more than that.

Are G&H bleeding money out of the system in ways which are clandestine (but legal)? How have we run up £50m worth of debt for a new stadium which is yet to begin? The fans want to know.

LFC’S CURRENT PLIGHT IN A NUTSHELLThere is nothing that will harm the club more than leaving Hicks and Gillett in situ, with no pressure upon them to do anything but consider their own bank balances.

YOUR ‘TO DO’ LIST – HELP SAVE LFC

Can’t a new manager turn things around until they sell?

Perhaps. But it depends what Hicks and

Gillett do in the interim. They see the club as nothing more than a vehicle to serve their own interests. From their point of view they want to make as big

You have options. We can give you more information on all of these. When you buy things, proceeds go to SOS, or to the Stop! Think! Fight! campaign.

Join SOS. www.spiritofshankly.com

Find other ways to unite and add your number to the fold: find them at www.savelfc.org and the pages in here.

Be choosier with your money. Fans are finding ways to make sure their money goes to the right places. Where does the money go when you buy official merchandise, or a half time bovril?

Get involved in rallies and protests. Stand up and be counted.

Got ideas? Can you write? Or draw? Get in touch – learn new skills and get involved. Ordinary people did all this.

Write to RBS about the debt they’re allowing the owners refinance, or cancel any accounts you have with them and

tell them why.

Write to the politicians like your local MP and Vince Cable.

Write to the Premier League – Broughton has a conflict of interest. Write to the sponsors (Standard Chartered, Adidas etc) and tell them you won’t buy their products while they support these owners, and to help push for ownership change.

Write to the media. Let them know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and why they should be interested.

Write to FIFA and UEFA they should be applying pressure.

Buy the fans’ alternative kit, or the SOS or SaveLFC t-shirts. They’re nice, and they make a clear visual statement.

Buy the single. Just search for “Sons of Anfield” on iTunes. Bet you can’t stop yourself humming it in your head.

By kkakhu - get real name

You know the facts. But how you can make a difference? Here are some ways to get behind the cause, and add to the pressure. Nobody’s forcing you – you choose.

STOP!

THINK!

It’s a state of mind, all this. There’s no point weeping or feeling weary – some people go their whole lives without ever having the chance to fight for something

they believe in – something they love!

So enjoy the process, no matter how long it takes. Have a laugh and go easy

FIGHT!

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SPADES – GREAT FOR DIGGING UP DIRTAll hail the humble spade.

For millenia, man has used this versatile garden utensil to excavate, entrench, and muck out shite.

You could find no more fitting symbol for the honest working man. The kind of man who Shankly himself talked about when he said “I only got out of football what I put in. I never cheated anybody.”.

Fast forward 30 or so years from the great man’s quote, and two newcomers to the City of Liverpool were heard to make comments on the subject of spades, while making the kind of pledges that hinted they would only be taking out of the club what they themselves put in.

Four years on from the quote on the right, and as we’re still waiting. Maybe patience is a virtue eh? Regardless, we thought we’d do a little digging of our own. In the next few pages, we dig up the dirt on the two men who own Liverpool Football Club,

And you’ll see for yourself - there’s a lot of it.

We look at their business dealings, their CVs to date, and last but not least, we’ll do what the media thus far seem to have swept under the carpet (for the most part anyway).

We’ll look at those accounts. And don’t worry - by the time you’re finished reading, you won’t feel depressed or downhearted.

You’ll feel salty for the fight ahead, and you’ll be ready to join the growing numbers of Liverpool fans dedicating their free time and energy to doing what’s best for their football club.

So - to the facts.

First up - the little matter of the stadium we were promised.

“The first spade will start going into the ground on that [stadium] project by March [2007].”

George Gillett, February 2007

“The shovel needs to be in the ground in the next 60 days or so [to start work on the new stadium] and we would intend to follow that. I think you’ll see the beginnings of a great big swimming pool being dug out here in Stanley Park relatively soon.”

George Gillett, February 2007

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Former LFC owner David Moores has let it be known in a recent letter to The Times that he resents the accusation that a quick Google search would have uncovered a few outstanding bills and bankruptcies in Hicks and Gillett’s dusty cupboard and that he was remiss in handing custody of our club to the duo. He wrote, ‘The simple truth is we went way beyond Google in our check-ups.’ Rothschild – ‘one of the most respected names in global finance’ – vouched for both of them, Moores revealed: Rothschild being the firm that was representing… Hicks and Gillett.

But with a day’s subscription to an electronic newspaper cuttings’ library costing around £20 back then, what would he have uncovered had he and Rick Parry done some cursory research into their new buddies? Enough to have made them hit the pause button, we contend, as we whizz back to the scene in the fans’ time-travelling regret-mobile.

TOM HICKS: GREED IS GOODAs Rick Parry manoeuvres his mouse over the screen, a carefree – almost clown-like – grin spreads over his face as he learns that Hicks began his career on Wall Street in the 70s and had early success with his own private equity business. But then he freezes: in the early 80s Hicks nearly went bust, spending four years battling through the courts with a former partner. In the later

80s, he was one of the leveraged buyout stars of the greed-is-good decade. However, by 2000, his private-equity firm had borrowed increasing amounts. When it hit problems, the need to repay big loans from commercial banks sent it scrambling for cash. He jumped on the Internet merry-go-round in 1999 and ended up badly bruised. He then swore he would return to the ruthless lbo model he knew best. Hmm. But still, Parry tells himself, a leopard can change his spots, as the well-known saying goes…

GEORGE DUBYA AND A VERY PRIVATE INVESTMENTHicks didn’t get where he was without oiling some juicy contacts along the way, Parry learns. But his brow furrows as he reads this 2002 article in The New York Times detailing how George Bush and a syndicate of owners had sold the Texas Rangers baseball team for triple the price they had paid.

‘The price-is-no-object buyer was a deal maker named Tom Hicks. And thereby hangs a tale…

‘The University of Texas, though a state institution, has a large endowment. As governor, Mr. Bush changed the rules governing that endowment, eliminating the requirements to disclose “all details concerning the investments made and income realized,” and to have “a well-recognized performance measurement service” assess investment results. That is, government officials no longer had to

GOOGLE IS OUR FRIENDWhat exactly would David Moores have discovered had he googled ‘Tom Hicks’ back in 2007?

tell the public what they were doing with public money, or allow an independent performance assessment. Then Mr. Bush “privatized” (his term) $9 billion in university assets, transferring them to a non-profit corporation known as Utimco that could make investment decisions behind closed doors.

‘In effect, the money was put under the control of Utimco’s chairman: Tom Hicks. Under his direction, at least $450 million was invested in private funds managed by Mr. Hicks’s business associates and major Republican Party donors. The managers of such funds earn big fees. Due to Mr. Bush’s change in the rules, these investments were hidden from public view; an employee of Utimco who alerted university auditors was summarily fired. Even now, it’s hard to find out how these investments turned out, though they seem to have done quite badly.

‘Eventually Mr. Hicks’s investment style created a public furore, and he did not seek to retain his position at Utimco when his term expired in 1999.’

HICKS IN BRITAINUh oh. ‘Does Hicks has a record for doing what is best – for Tom Hicks – ignoring any wider moral issues or responsibilities?’ Parry asks himself. Hicks was once chairman of Viasystems Group Inc, the parent company of a Tyneside electronics firm which made 1,000 locals redundant in 2001 without paying them redundancy worth an average of £27,000 each. Because Hicks’s parent company cut all ties to the Tyneside subsidiary just before it

went under, it was not liable for any of its debts. Cash to compensate workers came from the British government, as had regional assistance when the firm opened. In short, the British taxpayer paid for Hicks’s failed venture.

SPORTING HICKS: “I’VE DONE THINGS ABOUT RIGHT FOR ME”Tapping in the words ‘Hicks’ and ‘sports,’ Parry learns that Hicks has previously owned a football team. ‘This should be illuminating,’ he tells himself. In 1999, Hicks’s firm bought into Brazilian giants Corinthians, promising a state-of-the-art stadium. Parry’s pulse quickens. Early on, signs were encouraging – the signing of Brazil internationals Dida and Luizao, for example. But the following summer, the Americans began selling off star names, and pulled out of the club in 2003 after a row with a local partner over funding. South American journalist Ezequiel Moores summarised how, ‘Hicks took over two teams, Corinthians and Cruzeiro, through contracts that should have run until the year two thousand and ten.

‘These deals included promises of construction of new stadiums. Hicks also bought forty nine percent of the traffic television network and dreamed